The association has urged the Inspector-General of Taxation and Ombudsman to prioritise a review into client-agent linking to rectify “serious deficiencies” within the system.

The National Tax & Accountants’ Association has joined other industry bodies in calling for the Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman (IGTO) to undertake a review into Client-Agent Linking (CAL) within the coming year.

In response to the IGTO’s consultation on its draft work plans, the NTAA said CAL continues to negatively impact a broad section of the community with the association having received over 500 written complaints about CAL from registered tax agents.

The NTAA noted that the CAL system was originally introduced to improve cyber security, including preventing situations in which a Tax Agent or a Taxpayer’s identity is stolen by criminals.

“Unfortunately, any benefit achieved in this regard comes at an enormous cost to the tax community due to some serious deficiencies in how CAL has been rolled out to certain taxpayers,” it said.

“CAL was rolled out to small to medium-sized businesses, excluding sole traders, in November 2023, and since then, the NTAA has received an unprecedented volume of negative feedback from our members regarding CAL.”

The NTAA said some of the more serious concerns are that CAL is cumbersome and confusing, creating an ongoing administrative nightmare for tax agents.

MTC